Vanessa McMahon

25th ANNUAL PALM SPRINGS INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL SCREENS FOREIGN LANGUAGE OSCAR® SHORTLIST

The 25th Annual Palm Springs International Film Festival (PSIFF) will screen all nine films selected to advance in the next round of voting in the Foreign Language Film category for the 86th Academy Awards®. The Festival, held from January 3-13, 2014, will screen 46 of the 76 films that had originally qualified in this category.

The films, listed in alphabetical order by country, are:

· The Broken Circle Breakdown (Belgium/Netherlands), Director Felix van Groeningen

· An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker (Bosnia), Director Danis Tanovic

· The Missing Picture (Cambodia/France), Director Rithy Panh

· The Hunt (Denmark), Director Thomas Vinterberg

· Two Lives (Germany/Norway), Director Georg Maas

· The Grandmaster (Hong Kong), Director Wong Kar-wai

· The Notebook (Le Grand Cahier) (Hungary), Director János Szász

· The Great Beauty (Italy/France), Director Paolo Sorrentino

· Omar (Palestine), Director Hany Abu-Assad

Artistic Director Helen du Toit and Festival Director Darryl Macdonald are thrilled to be presenting all of the Academy's initial shortlist in the Foreign Language Film category at the upcoming Palm Springs International Film Festival. "We extend our heartiest congratulations to those selected!"

A special jury of international film critics will review the eight shortlisted films along with the other 38 films screening in the Festival to award the FIPRESCI Award for Best Foreign Language Film of the Year, Best Actor and Best Actress. For a complete schedule visit http://www.psfilmfest.org.

-OFFICIAL PSIFF PRESS RELEASE-

Edited by Vanessa McMahon